Using Sheriff Sharpe against me after all that man had already done. After all he’d taken.
That was unforgiveable.
“Unforgiveable, Cairo,” I barked. “You play your little game of kings with everyone else, but not with me. I’m different. You know I am, or you wouldn’t have brought me here. Don’t ever use your father against me. Promise.”
He said nothing, and a burst of anger rocked me.
I slapped him across the face.
“Promise!”
“I promise you this.” His expression didn’t shift. “If you don’t calm down, I’ll make that spanking you got seem like a tickle. You won’t sit for a week.”
Chest heaving, I quieted—though my glare had plenty more to say.
“I won’t bring up the sheriff.”
My arms dropped, opening to accept him as he slid me closer, easing me on his lap.
“You won’t?”
He shook his head, resuming my bath. “I won’t have to. You’ll tell me everything. All on your own.”
I tucked in the crook of his neck, threading my arms around him. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re different.”
***
Roan
“No, Cairo!”
A low murmur sounded from the other side of the door.
“You can ask how many times you fucking want! I’m not walking around campus on a leash!”
Another murmur. Then a crash.
“Fuck you. Fuck your leash. Fuck this pet shit. Fuck—”
I eased down the stairs, bypassing the impending homicide—against who, I couldn’t tell.
The lady did stab me.
I touched my bandaged side. My cock twitched in my pants.
I was known for eclectic tastes in the bedroom/car/closet/woods. Which is why I picked people who could keep up with me. That said, in the revolving door of freaks, sluts, and delectably delicious skanks, none of them could push past a pinprick of the finger before skeeving out at the blood and shouting the safe word.
Not Rainey “Yummy” de Souza.
She wielded that knife like a warrior—a sex goddess. Riding and bucking on my fingers as she delivered justice. And when she decreed that my punishment wasn’t over, she sheathed her blade in my skin without a moment’s hesitation.
“Not good enough.”
I’ve jacked off to the fiery-eyed, dark-haired beauty bringing the knife down half a dozen times since.
I now understood Cairo’s irritation with anything that reminded him of why it took so long for Rainey to come into our lives.
If that woman’s not my soul mate, who is?
Legend waited in the living room, riffling through his shoulder bag.
Well, one of them.
“Hey.” I slid in next to him, slipping my hand up his shirt. “How long has it been since I sucked your dick?”
His grin was wolfish. “The answer will always be too long.”
He slipped his hand up mine—for a different reason. Legend’s touch tickled around my bandage.
“Sure you’re up for it?” he asked.
“When am I not?”
“I warned you one of these days, you’ll piss someone off who is more than willing to carve you up,” he said.
“—humiliating. How am I supposed to face people? How will you?!”
Cairo came down with a raging vision in a clinging silver dress cut way low and ending way high. All her assets and curves shown on full display, along with her single accessory—a pink collar.
“And how lucky am I that I finally found her,” I said to Legend.
Arsenio and Jacques tromped down a step behind. Those two were frosty bastards who didn’t give off any emotion when standing there waiting for you to be worth their time, worked as well. Still, I’d bet another go with Rainey and my knife, they were checking her out too.
Full, sweet lips pinched in annoyance. A rack I was looking forward to falling asleep in strained against the tight fabric. Long sable hair was swept into a bun—Cairo’s idea, I wagered. It left everyone free to see the collar for miles around.
“I have a ten a.m. class,” she said. “I’m not walking in there like this.”
“Aww,” I cooed. “It’s adorable that you think you have a choice.”
“I’m serious. I need law school recommendations from these professors. They have to take me seriously.”
“Aww. It’s adorable you think this is a debate.”
Rainey flipped me off.
“Two,” Jacques said, brushing past her. “Let’s go. We have matters to handle.”
Rainey tried digging her heels in. Arsenio scooped her over his shoulder and carted her out the door.
The house my mother gifted us on Greek Row was a five-minute walk from the student union. One or all of us went there in the mornings. Bagel Glory and all the breakfast shops in that place were overrun by students who didn’t think about what would happen after they moved out and Mommy stopped cooking for them.
Those students, at some point, ended up on the terrace where we sat every day, holding court. We never called it that, but I liked it all the same.
Arsenio set her down as we neared Homer Green. All eyes of those studying, lounging, frisbeeing on the grass found us, then they found her.